Seventh graders to start learning early

In Fall 2006, 50 seventh-grade students will have the opportunity to attend an alternative school on the GC&SU campus that will help them prepare for college.

The program, Early College, is a collaboration between GC&SU, the Baldwin County School District and Oconee Regional Educational Services Agency. The purpose is to provide a small, 7-12 grade school to aid students who are not presently on track to effectively pursue post-secondary education. Students will come from Baldwin County’s Oak Hill Middle School and Putnam Middle School.

Dr. Karynne Kleine, associate professor and cohort mentor- leader and planners of Early College, said one of the criterions of the program is children who will be first generation college students.

“The program is for students who would not go to college without intervention,” Kleine said. “The teacher identifies (the student) as showing potential.”

Early College is designed to serve students who are capable but are not currently performing at the level needed to successfully pursue college preparatory programs in ninth grade, said Dr. Linda Irwin-DeVitis, dean of the John H. Lonsbury School of Education, in a press release.

It is designed to accelerate learning and to allow students to earn up to 60 college credits by the time they graduate from high school and/or meet the requirements for the HOPE scholarship.

The school will be located on the GC&SU campus and will utilize the skill of university faculty and full-time Early College high school teachers, said Kleine.

GC&SU students will provide mentoring and tutoring, and university faculty will teach special seminars. Student teachers and interns will have positions in Early College classrooms.

“We consider this another opportunity to provide a different kind of instruction and different services to children to help make them successful,” said Gene Trammell, superintendent of Baldwin County Schools, in a press release.

Early College students will be able to use the library, technology labs and college facilities. The students will also be issued a Bobcat Card.

“(They will only be about) one percent of the students body, so it will have minimal impact on regular students,” Kleine said.

Students participating will have a mentor teacher who is their main support. The mentor teacher will work with each student during academic classes and advisory, which is a class intended to give academic guidance in addition to individual support and guidance.

The mentor teacher will work with students through seventh and eighth grades. This will prepare them for entry into a college preparatory curriculum in ninth grade. Dual enrollment courses may start as early as tenth grade. By eleventh grade, Early College students will commonly be enrolled in several college courses, Irwin -DeVitis said.

Funding of $450,000 came from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Woodruff Foundation, Georgia Board of Regents and the Georgia Department of Education. It is one of six programs of its kind funded in Georgia, and the only seventh-through-twelveth grade program in the state. The Georgia organization is joined with the national Early College High School Initiative, which consists of 12 national education organizations to create 170 Early College high schools, serving more than 65,000 youth by 2008.

“I think we’re really lucky to have the opportunity,” Kleine said. “It is a really great thing for GC&SU to be involved in.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Feb 24 2006. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry